Connected Health in Multiple Sclerosis: A Mobile Applications Review

BACKGROUND The rapid development of mobile application technology and personalized medicine also in Europe, stimulate the self-monitoring. Self-monitoring allows the patient to actively participate in the treatment process, with a positive impact on the result of the treatment. Mobile applications thus offer a new way to promote healthy behaviors, such as healthy diet, physical activity and measurement of blood glucose levels in the care for women with gestational diabetes. However, there are many factors, which make significant barriers preventing wide use of mobile applications in general medical praxis. OBJECTIVE The main aim of this study is to evaluate the most commonly used mobile apps used to manage gestational diabetes and compare them to each other. METHODS This paper presents a study, which investigates the mobile applications that can potentially support controlling of the blood sugar in pregnant women. After a broad overview of mobile applications on the Google Play Store and iTunes, we found 90 mobile applications that fit our keywords search terms and our inclusion criteria. Among these 90 applications, only 4 were designed for the management of gestational diabetes and not diabetes in general. All 4 were downloaded and analysed. Among the rest 86 applications that were designed to manage diabetes in general we downloaded, evaluated and compared to each other 5 applications with the highest download rate. RESULTS The characteristics of the most commonly used applications were described. Differentiations between useful mobile applications were investigated. CONCLUSIONS Applications can provide support for women to act on a certain issue by themselves without visiting an obstetrician. Although most of the applications were very useful, we suggested improvements. The greatest policy concerns of connected health are quality, privacy and safety of the gathered data.

Download Full-text

Encouraging physical activities at home for people with multiple sclerosis with mHealth tools: A literature review

Technology and Disability ◽

10.3233/tad-200315 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Clémence Chassan ◽

Céline Jost ◽

Marc Sévène ◽

Olivier Cras ◽

Thomas De Broucker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Multiple Sclerosis ◽

Literature Review ◽

Digital Libraries ◽

Mobile Applications ◽

Neurological Disease ◽

Mobile Application ◽

Rehabilitation Program ◽

Physical Activities ◽

Physical Exercises ◽

At Home

BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic degenerative neurological disease with visual, sensitive, motor, or cognitive symptoms. Physical activities are recommended for people with MS (pwMS) who are at home instead of in a rehabilitation program, to help them to maintain their autonomy. Since a lack of motivation appears to be the principal barrier for pwMS to practice exercises, it is necessary to evaluate whether mobile health (mHealth) tools can offer a solution to stimulate their motivation. OBJECTIVE: This literature review analyzes papers to investigate to how a mobile application can motivate pwMS to practice physical activities and manage their fatigue. METHODS: We performed an automatic query from digital libraries and analyzed the studies. RESULTS: We selected seven articles that responded to our criteria. These studies tested mobile applications that used different strategies to motivate pwMS to practice physical exercises at home and manage their fatigue. A lack of motivation was the main obstacle, but depending on the type of exercises chosen, some application settings seemed to resolve this issue. CONCLUSIONS: Studies in this area are limited, although this literature review highlights the need for mHealth tools in which pwMS and their therapists contribute to their use and conception.

Download Full-text